Places that Matter

Bronx River Houses

Place Matters Profile

By Elena Martínez/City Lore

Less than one mile south of Bronx Park and the Bronx Zoo, along the Bronx River, nestled between the neighborhoods of West Farms and Soundview lies the Bronx River Housing Project. Completed February 28th, 1951, it comprises nine 14-story residential buildings, containing 1,247 apartments. It currently houses 3,025 residents.

The Bronx River Houses were built as the construction of public housing in New York peaked. In the 1950s the New York City Housing Authority built an average of 7,500 units built a year, and began to build large high rise projects in areas like East Harlem, central Brooklyn, and the South Bronx. Sixteen public housing projects were completed in the Bronx, nine of which were in the eastern area of the borough, giving the Bronx the largest concentration of public housing in the U.S. To make room for so much housing massive “slum clearance” leveled block after block of Melrose, Mott Haven and Claremont. Built in a neighborhood that was mostly a Jewish community prior to World War II, by the 1980s, Bronx River housed mostly Blacks and Latinos.

Bronx River Houses has a history of young people with musical talent living within its boundaries. Long before hip hop became the music of a generation, doo wop was the sound of the prior era. During this time a group of girls from Bronx River Houses who went to nearby James Monroe High School called themselves the Desires’ Debs–a fan club for the Harlem-based group, Desires, who recorded “Let it Please Be You.” Young songwriter Ronnie Mack was also living at Bronx River Houses. He wrote a song called “Puppy Love” which was recorded by Little Jimmy and the Tops. In 1962 two of the Desires’ Debs, Barbara Lee and Pat Bennett, along with two other women, began rehearsing under Ronnie Mack. After he wrote a song called “He’s So Fine” (which many recognize by the repeated line ”doo lang, doo lang”) the Desires’ Debs became the Chiffons and recorded his song. It became an immediate hit.

But what really put Bronx River Houses on the map is its contribution to hip hop. It is widely known that the internationally and commercially successful, sound, style, and phenomenon that is hip hop, had its origins in the Bronx. Some of the early key figures in hip hop like Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash (they were the first DJs to master cutting the breakbeat on a record and helped to refine the “scratching” technique) were from the west Bronx and South Bronx, but Bronx River Houses, home to musicians like Afrika Bambaataa (Bam), became the epicenter of the movement in its early days; DJ Disco Wiz comments: “The main hip-hop entrepreneur was Herc. Then Bam gave an African flavor to it, and once he did that it was off the hook.” (In its early days, it wasn’t called “hip hop.” It is widely held that DJ Lovebug Starski originated the term circa 1974.) What makes this all the more significant is that the young people who were involved in the music, dancing, and visual arts of what soon became a worldwide phenomenon were from low-income families in the Bronx when it was “burning,” living in neighborhoods that many writers and commentators have compared to Dresden after the bombings during World War II. With few resources, and maybe in spite of these limited resources, the young people of this area of the Bronx gave form to new cultural expressions.

Throughout all this, the Bronx River Houses remained an incubator for the talent and creativity which came together and converged there. Housing projects are generally perceived negatively due to the high density of people living in a bounded area. Here it may have worked against the trend by bringing a critical mass of people together who were instrumental to the formation of the scene. People find ways to cope with the stress and problems in their environment, including the City’s overcrowdedness. In this case a critical mass allowed for the development of social networks, or subcultures, resulting in greater, not lesser social organization. And it was there that Bambaataa formed Zulu Nation, in 1974 (originally called Bronx River Organization; Zulu Nation; Almighty Zulu Nation; and today the Universal Zulu Nation), a group which was to be a pivotal force in the formation of hip hop. Afrika Bambaataa lived at the Bronx River Houses, as did Kool DJ D and Jazzy J, two other DJs who were important to the emerging music scene, and Cowboy, the first MC for Grandmaster Flash. Bio, one of the members of the aerosol artist collective Tats Cru also grew up there (Tats Cru is important to the graffiti element of hip hop because though they are not from the first wave of hip hop, their worldwide and commercial success today have transcended the Bronx’s borders).

Zulu Nation is a collective of DJs, breakdancers and graffiti artists, who used rhyming and music to channel youth energy away from violence. It was a conscious attempt to get gang members (Bambaataa himself had been a member of the street gang, the Black Spades) involved in art and community-based activities like cleaning up the neighborhood. In the early 1970s, the gang situation in parts of New York City had reached a critical point. Thousands of young men were involved in gangs. Some, like Bambaataa, saw the need to channel that energy elsewhere, Zulu Nation’s precepts included Peace, Love, & Unity, and meetings were held at Bronx River Houses community center for young people to raise their consciousness on a variety of topics, as well as to play music. Bambaataa comments, “The Bronx River Community Center was one of the original hip hop big spaces–hundreds of people could fit into it at one time” and:

Many people central to hip hop’s early days started playing here such as DJ Red Alert, Tex DJ Hollywood, Kool DJD, and Lovebug Starski. . . Many great hip hop artists came out of this gymnasium, giving great parties here with the famous Father of Hip Hop, Kool Herc; the Godfather of Hip Hop in the Last Millennium, the Amon Ra of the Universal Hip Hop culture, Afrika Bambaataa; Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five; Soul Sonic Force; Kool DJ AJ; Curtis Blow; the Cold Crush Brothers; Funky Four and One More. A whole bunch of hip hop groups have come from this great community in the Bronx River Houses.

In 1976, though the media painted images of burnt-out buildings and lifeless streets, the Bronx was far from a cultural wasteland. Behind the decay and neglect was a cauldron of vibrant, unnoticed, and quite visionary creativity born of its racial mix and its relative isolation. The Universal Zulu Nation celebrates it official birthday on November 12th, 1973, and they celebrate the birth of hip hop as November 12th, 1974. What started out as kids rhyming and bringing their turntables to the streets and parks for parties had grown into an international phenomenon. Whether one likes the music or not, hip hop influences all aspects of our popular culture, largely thanks to the individuals who gathered at Bronx River Houses and created this music.

Evelyn Gonzalez. The Bronx. New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Jill Jonnes. South Bronx Rising: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of An American City. New York: Fordham University Press, 2002.

Richard Plunz. “Reading Bronx Housing, 1890-1940,” in Building a Borough: Architecture and Planning in the Bronx, 1890-1940. New York: The Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1986.

Tricia Rose. “A Style Nobody Can Deal With: Politics, Style, and the Postindustrial City in Hip Hop.” In Urban Mythologies: The Bronx Represented Since the 1960s. New York: Bronx Museum of the Arts, 1999

The Bronx River Houses are one of the birthplaces for the culture of Hip-Hop. It was also the residence of Afrika Bambaataa. He held many early Hip-Hop parties there as well as many meetings in the community center. In 1973 he also founded there The Universal Zulu Nation -- the longest running Hip-Hop organization -- started as a way out of gangs and violence.

Hip-Hop is a very important art form as well as culture. The Bronx River Houses is the birthplace of the cultural aspect of the art-form. It is important for the world to recognize this.

The community center was important because that's where the parties were, and also many meetings.